Tunnel Vision

City Commissioner Steve Novick has spent the past two
months saying Portland can’t find the money for basic transportation
services such as streets and sidewalks.

But Novick’s city
budget requests show he’s also trying to funnel more than a half-million
dollars to a new mass transit project that would mostly serve people
living outside the city limits.

No, it’s not the Columbia River Crossing or Portland-Milwaukie Light Rail.

Novick has requested
$650,000 to study the possibility of building a new light-rail line
through Southwest Portland to Tualatin, a project that could include
drilling a second train tunnel through the West Hills.

“This is an
investment for 20 or 30 years from now,” Novick says. “We expect to see a
lot of people moving to Portland, and we don’t want them just driving
cars.”

The request to help
fund the Southwest Corridor study comes even as Novick is pleading
poverty on behalf of the Portland Bureau of Transportation—and very
publicly seeking new taxes and fees to fund the bureau.

He launched his
marketing effort in December with a letter to Santa Claus asking for
$1.3 billion to fill a construction and maintenance backlog. Last month,
he polled Portland voters about whether they’d be willing to pay more
tax dollars for new sidewalks and street paving.

There has long been
conflict between City Hall’s fixation on trains and other costly capital
projects and more mundane chores such as addressing sidewalks and the
city’s 59 miles of unpaved roads.

“Communities across
the region are waiting for an endless list of neighborhood projects they
never get and they never will because projects like the Southwest
Corridor light-rail megaproject are at the head of the line,” says
Tualatin resident Steve Schopp, who wants a public vote on all
light-rail projects.

A city audit last
February found spending on new construction—such as $55 million on the
Milwaukie light-rail extension—has left the Portland Bureau of
Transportation without enough money for basic road upkeep (“A Fork in
the Road,”WW, Jan. 9, 2013).

“If we were being asked to make a commitment this year to pay $40 millionfor
a Southwest Corridor high-capacity transit project,” Novick says, “I
would say we can’t do that until we’ve figured out a way to pay for
basic maintenance and safety features. Ultimately, though, we in Oregon
and a lot of other places are going to need more high-capacity transit,
or we’re going to fry the planet like a grilled cheese sandwich.”

Novick’s Jan. 28 budget request—obtained by WW
through a public records request—would dedicate $650,000 in city funds
to studying the environmental impacts of Southwest Corridor High
Capacity Transit, a project led by Metro.

A Metro committee
voted in October 2012 to narrow the options to bus rapid transit—an
increase in bus service and lanes along Barbur—or light rail.
(Construction costs could exceed $1.6 billion, according to Metro
documents.)

Portland’s financial commitment could plunge the city into a bitter tussle with suburban light-rail foes.

The Southwest
Corridor project is already the target of a March ballot initiative in
Tigard that would require any new light-rail construction within that
city to be approved by Tigard voters.

The anti-rail effort
echoes populist uprisings against Milwaukie light rail in Clackamas
County and the Columbia River Crossing in Vancouver, Wash.

"In the low usage areas, we found that our vehicles sit idle four times longer, ultimately affecting overall vehicle availability for the Portland membership base, as well as parking for the Portland community."

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